Rising fortunes: Mount Carroll couple add a bakery to growing family business

There’s a new kid in town, and she’s the latest member of a growing family of businesses that her proud parents have delivered downtown.

Molly McDonough and Ben Johnson opened Molly’s Bakery at 108 W. Market St. on Jan. 23, and though this budding young business is still growing, things are already cooking for the husband-and-wife team behind the shop, who also own a restaurant/bar and downtown inn.

This next step in the couple’s growing business portfolio could have been their first step, had their neighboring diner, Molly’s Kitchen and Bar, not come along earlier. The couple opened the restaurant in 2014, but had talked about a bakery before that. They opted to put the bakery on the back burner while the restaurant got off the ground and they got things going at the Inn at Molly’s, open a little over 2 years, and run by Johnson’s parents, Patricia and Michael Johnson. It has two suites above the restaurant.

“We felt like the bakery would really reflect the things Ben and I enjoyed doing,” McDonough said.

“And that it compliments the restaurant in the kinds of products we make,” Johnson said. “We can use a lot of them in the evening on the restaurant’s menu as well. And we’re also really enjoying being open during the daytime, being able to serve people throughout the day, not just at night for dinner.”

The bakery also brings in more family food-lovers.

”We’re getting a lot more kids in, which is really nice to see – moms bringing their children, dads bringing their children,” McDonough said.

“It’s just nice to see a different clientele during the day than we do in the restaurant. It feels much more like a community atmosphere.”

Johnson said the interaction with the community “is really fun for us, and we’ve been just amazed by the support we’ve had. …It was amazing.”

The made-from-scratch menu already boasts an wide selection, and it could get ever bigger.

“We do muffins and scones,” McDonough said. “We’ve got cookies, baguettes, sourdough bread, croissants and bagels …”

“And bagels,” Johnson interrupted with enthusiasm. “We’ve got bagels.”

“And lemon bars,” finished McDonough.

“We also make our own lox,” Johnson said, including salmon gravlox.

“Everything that we’re selling is made from scratch here as far as baked goods go,” McDonough said.

The couple’s talents don’t stop there.

“We make our own cheese mixes, and we have espresso and espresso drinks, and we also sell cheese, prosciutto and wine,” Johnson said. “We have a selection of some nice wines, and just some other things that we make. We have some giardiniera that our sous chef [Grant Juracek] makes that we’ve canned up. We have some local soap, some pottery from local potters.”

The bakery also sells fresh flowers – baked goods and blooms, it’s quite a variety, and there’s more to follow.

“We’re still in our infancy, “ McDonough said, shortly after the opening. “We’ll continue to put out local stuff.”

That probably will include jams and salsa and items from the fruit of the labor in the family’s summer gardens.

“And we’ll be adding more baked things, too, as time goes on,” Johnson said. “This is just our starting menu. We have a lot of ideas. We have a lot of things we love baking, so over the coming months, we’ll be introducing more and more,” which may include cakes.

“Everybody who comes in kind of has something they want us to make, so we will be implementing things as it kind of grows and develops,” Johnson said.

Customers can take home their goodies or sit and eat at the bakery.

“We have a few tables and we’re actually going to put in a bar in a window, so there’ll be a few stools, so there is some seating,” he said.

The couple said it might expand its hours, come summertime – “we’ll be open a little later as people are around more in the area,” Johnson said.

“We’re just trying to figure out what we’re capable of with the restaurant schedule and this new bakery schedule,” McDonough said.

McDonough and Johnson, who are in their early 30s, met in college on the East Coast. Johnson grew up south of Mount Carroll and McDonough was born in Jacksonville, Florida, but spent her formative years in Alberta, Canada.

“We got married on the West Coast, and then you never know where life is going to take you,” he said. “We ended up back in Mount Carroll opening up a restaurant, and now we open up a bakery, so we’re just as surprised as everyone else.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Molly’s Bakery, 108 W. Market St., is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

• Molly’s Kitchen and Bar, 110 W Market St., is open from 4:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Go to mollysmountcarroll.com for more information. Call 815-906-0052 or email mollyskitchenandbar@gmail.com for more information about the restaurant and bakery.

• The Inn at Molly’s, 110 W. Market St., can be reached by calling 815-684-5411 or emailing theinnatmollys@gmail.com. Call 815-906-0052 from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. for reservations.